Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds: The Judgement of the World
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Beta By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
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Once years ago, Yugi had been brought to this self same hospital. Shot through the chest, barely missing his heart, and walked out alive and whole thanks to Kaiba. The hospital since that time had barely changed. Of course the technology had been upgraded over the decades, the parking lot and building saw upkeep and maintenance. When the Momentum project proved successful the hospital was one of the last to adapt.
Mostly due to the seriousness of transitioning between two different sources of power when they weren't sure if it would be sustainable. But Momentum didn't lose power during storms, and after Zero Reverse the hospital stayed with the electric free program. Mostly. There 'was' still the old power generators that were up kept in case of another Reverse.
It was to this location that Aki was driven down to with turbo dueling workbooks scattered on her lap.
Picking one up, trying to read it only to put it back down again. Over and over, with her eyes darting from one sentence to another. In frustration she finally gathered up the books and slipped them under the seat where the emergency supplies were kept. Then sat back and tried to brace herself for the hospital.
Leaving the comfort of the limo and once more out under the bright blue sky, she tried to walk lightly. Afraid of the sound of her heels clicking on the concrete side walk or the linoleum tile floors. It was the sound of the sliding doors pulling open or sliding shut that drowned out her shoes. But then the hospital itself took over with its constant noise.
There was the occasional spirit that hovered around their partners, unseen and unheard, one was an imp that was standing in the shadow of a janitor. Easily chatting up at a warrior woman spirit, while their human partners went about their own business. Oblivious of their spirits presence and interactions, while life continued as perfectly normal. People, be they doctors, nurses, family, walked down the hallways. A glance in one waiting room showed a man pacing back and forth while the tv played a game show off on the side.
Reaching the floor with her friends appeared no different than the first floor. Save the moment she saw the hallway where the seven teens were located. Benten was waiting, arms folded and her fighting fans bobbing. Dropping her arms so she could signal with her fan, alerting the others of Aki's arrival. That was when the others started to appear, Cyber Phoenix one of the first, swooping out and hovering in place. Dragons and warriors, Cyber Blader with the Harpy Lady and Sky Scout in physical tow.
Witch appeared behind Aki, off behind her right shoulder and peering ahead quietly. "I guess they're done..."
"Aki! Something is wrong with Momoe!"
"What's wrong with Junko?!"
"Aki? Aki is here?!"
Djinn jumped through the wall, rushing towards Aki with her powerful leonine legs... her lower body...
"Stop it! Slow down! No one else can see you and you'll make Aki look crazy if she has to react to you right now!" Witch flew forward to try and hold back the tide of spirits that began pouring out of the walls.
Aki straightened her shoulders...
"Lady Izayoi?" A nurse at the station to her left called out, standing up from her desk the woman gestured for Aki to approach.. "I just thought you should know, we gave several of your friends some pain medication. "Ms. Hamaguchi is already struggling, but Ms. Makurada... please keep her moving about as little as possible."
The nurses' voice dropped low as Aki approached, her expression professional and even then the worry was there. Tense lines of the lips, her hands fretting with the random papers under them.
"What about Junko, I thought it was just a break..." Aki asked, feeling the weighted pressure of the spirits growing silent to listen anxiously.
"No, it was worse than that, the doctors had hoped the burns were well, normal. But apparently they are the same as Ms. Hamaguichi, they're eating into her flesh."
"NO!" Cyber Harpy shrieked in mortified horror before she turned and fled back through the wall to her partner.
The sudden noise made Aki flinch, earning her a sympathetic expression from the nurse mistaking it as a reaction from the injury. "I know, but you must be strong for your friend. Ms. Makuradas' leg is the only thing injured. While Ms. Hamaguichi... please..."
The words fumbled to a stop. There just wasn't anything else to say, Momoe's injury was in her head, if it was eating through flesh. Would it through bone? Would it go through everything until Momoe's head was eaten through?
Witch hovered there feeling lower than the basement. Sky Scout lowered his head, he turned sluggishly around and walked back through the wall. His deep red wings the last things to be visible as they passed through. She wrung her wand in her hands as she looked about at the other spirits. All of them in states of distress, while Queen Dragun Djinn just...
"He's not physically hurt really, he just misses you a lot. Once Aki can reveal all of you to your partners he'll cheer up!" Witch tried... but looking in Djinns' eyes was agony, knowing how they died by the real Yusuke and Yubel. Djinn didn't say anything, instead she lowered her back half and waited, or maybe she was just too tired to try anymore.
The heroes that served Judai were quiet as well, but several of them moved off, and she could hear faint 'I'll check on Scout, go stay with Judai', was the order given by those spirits.
'Oh Gods they heard all that?' Aki questioned as she thanked the nurse and turned to go back on her way. She went first to check on the pair of girls, peeking into their room and.. 'Oh Momoe...'
Sky Scout was standing at the foot of her bed, his face stoic, but Aki could see the sign of something wet on his face. Momoe was just... her head was bandaged up and Aki was on the side where she could see Momoe's face, it was mostly normal. But Aki could see a faint edge of blushing red. Her eyes were open and staring straight ahead into whatever thoughts were going on in her head.
Junko was sleeping fitfully, trying to roll in bed, only her broken leg was making that difficult. 'Don't let her move that leg much...' the thought that Junko could lose her leg made Aki feel sick. That Momoe could out right 'die' made her stomach churn in rolls that made her want to see Asuka first.
"Momoe?" She called out gently, marshaling what courage she could find as she walked into the room. "Hi."
It took too long for Aki's liking for Momoe to turn to look at her. Life was gone from Momoe's eyes, all that was left of the boy crazy teen was this hopeless void. "Hi... have you seen Sky Scout?" She asked, dull lifeless in tone her eye began to scan the air around Aki. "He likes me just the way I am... I won't be hideous to him..."
Aki barely choked a sob down and nodded instead, "yes, yes, he's here in fact, the God of the Duel Spirit world made a way..." She said and let her powers touch Scout.
Momoe looked towards the door as Sky roused out of his slump and waved...
"She can't see you from that angle..." Aki explained and waved Scout over. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he rushed forward calling to Momoe in such clear distress.
"Scout? Scout!"
Aki bit her knuckle in response to the bitter bile in the back of her throat that this happened. Forcing herself to watch as Scout wrapped his arms around his partner. Begging for forgiveness, apologizing for his pitiful small wings and failing to protect his partner.
"I can't see out of my left eye anymore..." Her voice wavered in her dull attempt to sound like her old self. "They say the fire is going to eat my skull... I'm dying Scout... I'm not going to graduate high school."
The world became water as Aki began crying before she realized it, rushing over she desperately grabbed on to Momoe. Some vain hope that she could hold on to whatever remaining glimmer of the boy crazy, happy, life loving friend the teen had once been. Her hands ghosting over Momoe a bit before she was comfortable with a grab. Fear holding her back that she might squish something important.
"Was I bad? What did I do to deserve this?"
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Yusei's arrival was with no fanfare, he parked his wheels, removed the duel disk to deactivate it and went into the hospital. Striding past nurses stations, staff, the ill and injured, he made his way to the floor he knew Aki to be at. Perhaps the Mark on his face, or his overly serious mien on one as young as him was enough. For people backed up when they saw him, giving him a wide space to move.
Despite how serious he appeared, his focus wasn't on his surroundings, rather on the need for healing spirits. His deck wasn't much use in that aspect, same with the other Dragons save maybe Ruka. True Ruka's condition was bounding over the moon in progress now that she was no longer taking the heart medication. However; she was a kid and he didn't want her to see Momoe in her state as she was.
The twins and Kaiba had seen far more than Yusei would have liked. Exposing any of them to Momoe's injuries was more than he was willing to tolerate.
"Yusei, Aki sent me to let you know you need to go to the hospital," Witch materialized in the doorway of the kitchen of the twins condo.
Said twins paused by her arrival mid putting up groceries, while Yusei was elbow deep in a bag. All three pairs of eyes focused on her as she hovered there, relief was a strong emotion since the trio were home. She could talk to them without worrying over strangers hearing and causing problems that would upset Aki.
"Has something happened to her friends?" Yusei asked, retracting his hand from the bag as the twins exchanged worried glances. Soon all three made their way before Witch, and once upon a time she would have preened under the attention.
"Not really, though its..." Witchs' expression twisted up in a grimace as she tried to puzzle through something complicated. "Our God was called by Asuka and well She answered..."
"I know there are women versions of Yugi, but how could she summon Yugi?" Yusei asked, 'This is what I was afraid of. If Asuka can, then anyone can call Yugi back down into a timeline, but that doesn't mean its 'his'. So many false positives, maybe that's why its never made public...'
"Yeah and this one sounds very serious, the 'do not cross if you like living' type. She mentioned a 'negation of reality' and is assigning a task to them."
"So, whatever affected them doesn't concern the Dragons," Ruka elaborated, her head tilting a bit to the side. "But what happened to the Captains involves, like, all of reality coming to an end?"
"So how much bigger is the stuff we're supposed to deal with?" Rua asked in quiet horrified awe. "I mean the reality goes then we can't do anything about it?"
'Counterparts,' Yusei answered in his mind, 'they can have any Dragons from any other reality. We're ultimately replaceable for whatever threat this Yugi is aware of.' His gaze lowered to the twins and the thought of saying it out loud in front of these small children. His stomach clenched almost painfully tight. "You stay here, you have homework, while I'll see to them."
"Ok Big brother, just don't forget to have dinner if it takes too long!" Ruka instructed looking up with this painfully trusting expression on her face.
Her concern earned a smile from Yusei, especially from all her 'no we can't live on Cup Noodle alone, yes I will call Aunt Martha if you try'. The twins, the children on Satellite, such loyalty was comforting. "I promise, I'll get a proper dinner if it takes too long. But only if you two don't order some cheap, unhealthy delivery."
Yusei reached Momoe and Junko's room, but he refused to distract Aki when he saw her. Arms wrapped around Momoe and the room was almost crowded by spirits. The whimpering and Aki's voice straining to be normal while reciting 'You're not going to die, we won't let that happen', told him all he needed to hear.
With a frown, he walked across to where Ryo and Kazu were roomed and found the pair of guys with their spirits. The room was a copy of the girls, only Ryo was in the bed closest to the door, though Yusei knew that's not how they were originally assigned. There was a gleaming metal phoenix sitting on the foot of Ryo's bed, and a Cyber Dragon coiled around the base.
Ryo caught sight of Yusei in the reflection of Phoenixs' metallic frame and turned to look at the Turbo Duel King. "Hello, I have no idea how this happened, but hello."
"Well you and I are in the same boat," Yusei noted as he stepped in. "Aki's visiting the girls and I felt like it would be better to check on you."
Ryo nodded tensely, "I overheard the doctors, mentioning that Junko might lose her leg... Because the fire, got her leg and its eating through her skin." He began looking about the room in growing frustration, his hand clenching the bar of his bed more tightly. "Don't need to be the 'Emperor' of the school to know what it means for Momoe. You can lose a leg and live, you can't decapitate someone and live."
Yusei bowed his head in respect for the weight of the situation, the Mark on his arm burned with its weight as well. He could contact Yugi, he had the power of Crimson Dragon to help him if there was a threat to one of the Dragons. But Ryo was only a normal teenager, all of them were. 'This is my fault. I should have had Aki restrain her powers more, hold herself back. Or at least not let people meet their partners...'
He nudged his head towards the other side of the bed, where Kazu was still quiet, "sleeping?"
Ryo turned his head and looked down at Kazu, curled up and hugging Djinn, "he's awake."
"Yeah I'm sorry," Kazu picked himself up from the ground, "I don't know how but she's back. But oh Kami, Momoe, Junko..."
"Our God brought us back, well made new bodies and downloaded us into them..." Dragon rumbled from its place. "Only for flesh beings I don't know how it feels for them..."
"She brought her Dark Magician and he used his spells to slip something into the girls drinks to ease the pain. But I can't imagine its going to last," Phoenix explained. "He went through potions then his spellbook. I think he went through literally every spell he could to help them, and Sky Scout has been cursing his inferior wings ever since he saw the bandages."
"Witch said that Ancient Fairy Dragon is interviewing possible Spirits who are healers, if one of them can bond with Momoe, they should be able to help. Until a better long term solution can be found," Yusei explained as he moved further from the door. Realizing that Ryo could hear from his seat and it was possible that Momoe could do as well.
"Yusuke did this to her, how am I supposed to be friends with someone who does something so horrible to an innocent person?" Ryo asked, his voice tightening with emotions. "How can I call that guy a 'friend' again, when he..." Ryo flung his hand out to encompass the three other rooms with a sharp cutting slice of a gesture.
"You've done it," Kazu noted as he climbed back into his bed. "Aki put you through concrete and you two are dating. So either you have an extreme kink, or you must know something that lets you forgive such cruelty."
"Little of column A, some of column B..." Archfiend could be heard rumbling in amusement as he flew across in between the human and duel spirit worlds. In his massive claws he was carrying a few fairies and taking any chance to tease Yusei or Stardust was to ALWAYS be capitalized...
Yusei took a deep breath, mostly to deal with Archfiends' unexpected voice but also to help find the words. "Actions have consequences, not just his but those of the people who put him where he ended up this way. How much was his doing, how much was theirs... Could something been done and was ignored, or was there nothing that anyone could do and this was just how it turned out?"